From Hating to Loving

From Hating to Loving

Psychologist, Researcher, and Teacher, Saxa Stefani, takes a look at the destructive emotion of hate, and why we should make peace with this uncomfortable emotion and see it as a gateway to self-knowledge and mature, true love.

The most destructive emotion of all is also the most immediate. The consequences of hatred may also last for a long time, controlling a large part of our ordinary activities and relationships. How do we manage this feeling in a healthy way and how can we use it for our self-knowledge?

Many people tend to think that love is the first affection we build and then afterwards comes the emotion of hate. Actually, this process is reversed.

When we come into the world, we start this path from the feeling of loss. We are dispatched from the comfortable uterine environment into a world of new and unpleasant sensations: the harsh air impacts our skin sensitivity, the air is forced into our lungs for the first time, the smells hit us, and we move in a space that is no longer liquid. Even when hugged by the mother, the nutrition and food supply are somewhat erratic.

Thus, an anguished feeling of fear appears as a result of not having what we need to satisfy ourselves. The inability to anticipate when the next breast-feeding session or hug will take place leaves us in a state of uncertainty. What results is the hateful emotion of not being able to satisfy ourselves when and how we want to.

That is why we say we build love from hatred (and not the other way round). It is hatred that places us in front of the affection: we build bonds from a perception of loss, from our fear of its occurrence and from the uncertainty of the appearance of hunger or discomfort.

Hatred is formed by the impulses to keep ourselves satisfied, whether through food, body contact, smells, warming, or shelter. It makes its appearance when the significant other who carries out the protection, nurturing and peace, withdraws the attention and care we want to continue receiving. And it is totally normal for this to occur, since the external world cannot provide this constant satisfaction which is desired.

Later, during youth and adulthood, the sensation of lacking something we will inevitably feel in our lives will be fuelled from that primary dissatisfaction and everyday limitations. Thus, these instincts arising from “what we cannot have” will often be combined with sadness. This is because “we cannot enjoy ourselves”, and that produces malaise, or, for example, hatred combined with the fear of running out of “what satisfies me”, resulting in rejection.

The unpleasant and sustained sensation of lacking will make all attention and communication narrow. It would be conducted, as if it were an attractive force, towards the hated object, as if nothing else existed in our universe. That is why the emotion of hatred overwhelms us, and can cancel the conscious limits, leading us to anger or rage of great proportions with harmful effects. For this reason, where there is hatred, we need to feed it with words and language, lowering its aggressive load towards the communicative form. Speaking out allows all that energy to find a healthy and even constructive way to express itself.

Many times, we respond to hatred by repressing what we are feeling. Far from solving the frustration, the only thing we achieve by doing that, is to displace it and even increase its danger. So, to reflect on this point: “hatred” claims to be “heard”. By “listening to it” we can pull down its intensity, as expressed hatred is much better and less toxic than repressed hatred.

Having hateful feelings is normal, but if it persists for too long or with a high intensity, it leads us to immaturity, since it places us in a childhood state, which we are incapable of deactivating. And it is likely that rage, anger and hatred are triggered in our adulthood when we connect emotionally with the feeling of being passive or victims of an unpleasant situation when we were children. This can happen in our working environment or in our relationships. If we take responsibility for the discomfort we are feeling, we have a chance to reduce our hatred.

Why not start making peace with this uncomfortable emotion? Doing so has great benefits; instead of repressing hatred or turning it into aggressiveness, let us give it its deserved place and work on it. Let’s think of hate as a good gateway to self-knowledge and mature, true love.

Expressed hatred is much better and less toxic than repressed hatred.

Saxa Stefani has worked in clinical, HR, psychiatric addictions and coaching psychology. His accumulated professional experience and academic skills led him to establish ceideps in Barcelona, a specialised centre in Social Psychology, which Stefani presents as “one of the most powerful tools in psychology to accomplish a deep and multidimensional understanding and management of human behaviour.” @saxastefani @ceideps